Skepticism And Dogmatism

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On the subject of knowledge and reality, we face many philosophers and their opinions on how one acquires knowledge. In my essay I will focus on the issue between skeptics and dogmatists. I will first explain what dogmatism about perceptual justification and knowledge is, followed by how the dogmatist responds to the problem of skepticism, and why the response to skepticism is not plausible.
What is dogmatism about perceptual justification and knowledge? I will begin by breaking down this sentence and defining its core words. “Dogmatism,” according to Dr. David Seaman, is the ideology of “unfounded positive-ness in matters of opinion and the arrogant assertion of opinions as truths.” In other words, dogmatism is a unseeing trust that comes from reasoning. A dogmatist is more likely to support the philosophy of a relativist. Relativists believe in a criterion of judgment that varies with individuals and the environment they are in. Next we’ll define “perceptual justification.” Perceptual justification, one of James Pryor’s main interests, is a justification rooted from conscious perceptual experiences. Many philosophers, such as Alvin Goldman, object to this type of justification claiming that perceptual experiences are not always reliable for one to know something. Alternatively, he focuses on the mechanisms responsible for one’s perceptual experiences. The reasoning entailed in perceptual justification can be broken down further to propositional justification and doxastic justification, which includes propositional justification. Propositional justification can be defined when a Subject “S” possesses propositional justification for the belief that some proposition “P” if and only if they have good reason to believe that proposi...

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...ate first encounter justification. This justification is what leads dogmatists to perceptual knowledge. Skeptics challenge this perceptual knowledge that dogmatist claim to gain by questioning their beliefs. We notice how James Pryor attempts to respond to these skeptics through his use of the modest anti-skeptical project. Although the point of this project was to come to know things without having to contradict obvious facts given about perception, the project failed because it only established satisfaction for the dogmatist. Dogmatists also argued the grounds of independent justification in regards to skepticism but what they did not realize is that independent justification is much needed to attain belief in other aspects of premises. Henceforth, the dogmatist response against skepticism is not plausible because it cannot prove the skeptic’s theory inaccurate.

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